No Patch.
No Brander.
No Dabgy.
Lapis rocked back and forth in the chair, her boot planted on the edge of the stout table placed far away from the smoking remains of campfires, and stared at the dark-shrouded ceiling in the enormous cavern Hoyt had conscripted for mining. She understood why Patch slipped away without her, but playing overprotective lover did not sit well with her.
Especially since he left her with people who thought a brisk morning nap more than enough sleep to keep her awake while perusing Hoyt’s papers. Faelan expected her to make sense of the scribble, when forcing her eyes to stay open took most of her energy. She wished the Jiy camp had not noticed the evacuation craft landing, attracting all their unwanted attention. Then her brother would not be there, and she would not be scouring the sheets for info.
At least she did not have to worry about lone guttershanks and lost mercs. Those unfortunate souls were busily evading the Minq and Lord Adrastos’s people, who now combed the tunnels, using Dagby’s maps as a guide. And once found, the Minq shepherded them to the workstation in snazzy tech vehicles meant for cargo, where the Black Hats would become their stern guards.
She glanced at the syndicate members who guarded the entrances into the cavern, sighing. Neither Faelan nor Midir trusted the Black Hats, but Kathandra worked out a deal with Kayleb, who was a ball of pent-up worry for the remainder of his men still on board the skyshroud. Apparently her ties to the Second Council would allow her to ask after them, and perhaps even get them off the thing, and Kayleb sold his services to her in return.
Lapis narrowed her eyes. The Minq in Jiy contacted the base camp and told them the humongous aircraft had undocked and left, a sluggish black nuisance crossing the countryside. The timing coincided with the Swifts’ escape, so Shara sent a team to follow it. No one thought it happenstance, but the achingly slow progress held little information for them so far.
Shara also passed along info from Lord Adrastos, that the departure caught Gall off-guard and his panic filled the palace halls. Whatever lies Requet told the puppet king about the skyshroud’s presence made him assume a Dentherion interest in his rule that did not reflect reality, and he thought the empire was turning its back on him.
Lapis wondered what tech Requet slyly promised that Gall now realized would never materialize.
She vigorously rubbed her face and grabbed another incomprehensible sheet whose edges disintegrated under her fingertips. Hoyt could not afford more modern paper? They had an odd, greyish-yellow tinge, a color she associated with pages in the old books her uncle owned. Who had he stolen these from?
After a quick flick of her head to fight the lull of sleep, she glanced at the handwriting, squinted at the misspelled words, and sighed. She could not tell whether those were accidental because a shank with little education scrawled them, or on purpose, a code hiding another intention. She leaned to the latter because some of the errors just seemed too intentional.
Hoyt spelling his own name ‘Hoyd’? Not a coincidence. Perhaps Wrethe would have more luck than she.
She heard the patter of shoed feet before Rin plopped into the chair next to her and set a mug of wake juice in front of her. He still appeared haggard, but peppier after sleep and a dose of khentauree care. The mechanical beings’ concern startled him, because, as a rat, he was more accustomed to a doctor’s treatment being expensive and dismissive.
“How do you feel?” she asked, downing the steaming liquid. She normally demurred, but staying awake and doing what she could to help would show her brother—and through him, Patch—that she was useful.
He shrugged and glanced at the papers. “What’s this?”
“Hoyt’s stuff.”
He immediately grabbed a sheet. Flakes tumbled from it to litter the table.
“Rin!”
“What? Is borin’, sittin’ there watchin’ ever’one else scuttle ‘bout.” He looked over his shoulder. “‘Sides, I can help.” He held up a sheet and waved it. “Don’t ‘spose you knows Jilvaynan, do you?” Tovi wandered to them, shaking his head.
“Well, you can smile in relief that you won’t have to figure out what the mistakes mean. If we find anything in Lyddisian, though, I’m handing it off to you.” She lowered the sheet. “Why did they stick me here?” she complained, uncertain who she directed her resentment towards. Yes, they needed to know Hoyt’s plans. That would not come before he escaped the mines and went and hid wherever he planned to hide.
Her pessimism had grown with the escalation of events.
Tovi signed and Rin shook his head. “Nah, they ain’t back yet.”
Lapis snarled at that.
The rat nudged her with his elbow. “Poutin’ won’t help,” he informed her.
Neither would screaming at him, so she bit down on a hurtful retort to the remark.
Tovi hauled himself into another rickety chair, and leaned on the table, his nose almost touching the sheets, then he jerked back and winced, wagging his head to get rid of whatever he smelled. Lapis, who did not want to touch the grit-encrusted, disintegrating pages, understood the reaction.
“What do they smell like?” she asked.
He cocked his head, then the skin over his snout wrinkled down, and the edges of his mouth pulled low, before he signed.
“He’s sayin’ like old sponoil and somethin’ called greest. Greest’s some sorta joint oil in the grunt khentauree. He said the ones he and Cassa found in the ruins stink of it, but not strong, like this. When it rots, it smells . . . bad.”
Lapis frowned. “For someone who claims he didn’t force khentauree to work for him, it’s odd for his stuff to stink of sponoil and greest.”
“He prob’ly looted ‘em from some storage place. Too cheap to get his own,” Rin said.
Tovi hopped down and planted his nose near the ground. Lapis raised an eyebrow, and Rin glanced at her before rising and trailing him. The terron marched purposefully to a crate on the far side of the cavern, one shoved haphazardly against the wall, and pried the lid up with the tips of his claws. The rat peeked inside as she groaned to her feet; she might as well see what caught their attention.
The crate held old books, yellow notebooks, loose sheets, an empty inkwell. While it appeared someone carelessly dug through them, they remained fairly intact. Considering the multitude of other containers settled in front of it, without Tovi’s prompt, she never would have bothered to glance inside. She had enough to worry about with the task already given her, so would have left the sifting of boxes and such to someone else.
Carefully sliding her hands beneath the top notebook and wincing slightly at the dust, she lifted it from the crate. Turning, she blew at the powder, coughed as it filled the air, and moved away before opening the item.
She did not recognize the language. Rin and Tovi expectantly regarded her, so she showed them the tiny, neat handwriting.
The terron tapped a claw against the page and signed. “He’s sayin’ this looks like old Meergeven, but he ain’t sure,” the rat said.
She frowned. “Old Meergeven.” She shook his head. “Could Cassa read it?” Tovi rocked his head from side to side, non-committal. “The khentauree should know it, though.”
“Saw Path,” Rin said. “Ghost ‘n Sanna ‘r all talkin’ to the Minq ‘n yer brother, but she ‘n the others ‘r kinda bored. Bet she’d take a look.” He whirled on a heel and trotted away.
Lapis flipped through the pages, pausing on certain ones that reminded her of the coding Jhor used. Tovi looked through another notebook, sniffing and wrinkling his nose. “Is the scent strong?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Hmm. It’s probably from one of those tunnel rooms. Some of them had tech and sponoil stored inside.”
He tapped his claw against the dirt to catch her attention and wrote in the dust. His handwriting was far superior to that of many a rat; perhaps she could goad them into practicing neatness with the observation.
“Huh. Did the shanks say anything about where they found this hidden cache?” He shook his head. “That would explain the smell on this crate, though; it’s been in a room with rotting sponoil and greest for hundreds of years. I wonder how long ago they discovered it. Not long enough for it to air out.”
He dusted his previous words away before writing more.
“Yeah, guttershanks complain about everything. When you don’t have much and things aren’t exactly going well, it’s a way to feel better. That’s good for us, though, because you overheard them. And no, it wouldn’t surprise me if they spooked themselves into not returning. The room probably had khentauree parts or some other strange tech that frightened them. Tech’s illegal in Jilvayna for the average citizen, so guttershanks would rarely, if ever, encounter it, unless they worked for a major syndicate like the Minq. Anything that might shoot a beam and burn them to a crisp is suspect.”
Tovi dusted the words again and intently wrote.
“Yeah. After Dentheria invaded a country, they took away anything they considered technologically advanced. Millions died as a result. They starved, or got sick, and they didn’t have access to the medicines and equipment needed to heal them. We on Theyndora have long memories concerning the brutal start of the empire, and we know, if they thought it would bring them more wealth, that Dentheria’s leaders would happily exterminate even more people.”
His snout crinkled in a frown. She looked at what he wrote and sighed. “No, I don’t trust Kathandra. Her ties to the Second Council concern me greatly, and I fear for members of the Jiy contingent if she tells her family about this incident. Dentherion retribution is bloody and cruel.”
She did not think he liked the answer, but why lie about it?
Thinking of the workstation leader brought the problem of Gredy to mind. She sucked in a breath; where had he and his men gone? He, more than Hoyt and the markweza’s people, struck fear into the core of her chest. He had no reason to stay his hand if he ever encountered her again, and he wielded deadly tech.
Of course, the same reasoning applied to the Minq guards, and they had little motivation to heap kindness on him in an encounter.
